Studying the effects of early childhood circumstances on long-term health

In the study of birth outcomes, going to extremes is not always necessary. While intense events such as heat waves, deep cold or famine can impact fetal development and play a major role in the health of newborns, scientists who study birth outcomes can learn a great deal from more moderate scenarios. To illuminate this, Xi Chen, Ph.D., a health economist and assistant professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management, looked to the Muslim observance of Ramadan, which requires a month of fasting from sunrise until sunset, to understand how nutritional disruptions to an expectant mother can impact fetal development. Studies of external factors such as fasting also can have greater influence on policymaking than the study of extreme factors such as famine, Chen said. Moderate factors affect far more people: the Ramadan fast potentially impacts the health of more than one billion Muslims worldwide. Chen's study revealed that babies who were deprived of prenatal nutrition during Ramadan were more likely to be obese later in life. More generally, having been constrained during early life, Chen said, babies make more efficient use of the limited nutrients they receive during a time of fast and develop stronger digestive systems.